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Monday, September 1, 2014

Tablet commerce expected to reach 293 billion by 2018

2018 may sound like the title of a sci-fi disaster movie but it’s also the year the tablet may take over the ecommerce world. Usablenet predicts the rise of the hand-held machine in their new infographic, saying tablet sales will increase five fold by 2017. That’s over 1 billion tablets and a large percentage of owners will be using those tablets to shop.

Tablet commerce is expected to reach $114 billion in 2014 and rise to $293 billion in 2018.

All of that sounds wonderful but right now only 12% of people in the US are using a tablet to access the web. Of those that do, the majority are at home relaxing on the couch or in bed. These are people who have time to research and browse. They’re willing to spend a few more minutes reading the blog post or watching the video so give them the information they desire.

Even though there aren’t a lot of table users compared to PC and smartphone users, more than a quarter are doing their shopping on a tablet. What’s stopping the rest of the crowd from shopping? Personally, I do a lot of shopping online but I rarely use my tablet to buy anything. That’s odd because I’m very attached to my tablet but I tend to use it more for entertainment. I do use it to maintain my own eBay store but have never used it to buy on eBay.

Like 66% of the people in this survey, I do use my tablet to research products. I won’t go too deeply on a tablet, not like I will on my PC, so make sure I can find your information with a few clicks.

Which brings me to pet peeve time: see the box that says 63% of people check prices and look up store information on their tablet. I did that this week, found the Google expanded listing for the store I wanted to visit. Noted they were open until 9. Arrived there are 7:15 and they were closed. I beg you – store owners – check and update your information on Google! Regularly!

Here are a few more tablet facts that you can use to wow your friends: